• Politics

    Grudgingly

    I’m starting to like Tom Delay. An example of all is wrong and unlibertarian about the Republican party, yes (except maybe on guns). He is giving us entertainment value for our tax dollars, which is more than you can say about most politicians.

    For those of you who aren’t aware, this is his recent mug shot.

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  • Economics

    Economic illiteracy

    For the last time (though not anyone in particular, I’ve just heard this twice today from random people):

    Software piracy does not raise prices, it lowers them by adding substitutes, namely pirated copies of the software. It DOES prevent software from being profitable, and hence, created by making it unfeasible to create the software.

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  • Google,  Microsoft

    Quick thoughts on Google

    While having dinner with Pastras tongiht, I remarked that Google was brilliant because they never did anything hard. That is not to say that the creation of that company did not involve anything difficult, but rather that they use technology in a proper way and never in a way that just barely works.

    What is the word for that?

    A new word I just learned from the surprisingly difficult to use Volokh site is “Parade of Horribles” which I’ve never heard before.

  • NSA

    Not caring

    I read this wired article Phone Tap: How’s the Traffic? and found it interesting in a technical way and telling in a social way. Short summary: Missouri plans to monitor traffic by the amount of cell phone signals that pass over the roads.

    The usual privacy advocates are up in arms, the state government has promised that none of the info will be individualy identifiable (for now of course). Naturally the plan is proceeding. (One of the firms involved in the industry, Airsage, seems to be located in my old stomping grounds of Marietta).

    There do seem to be some good technical reasons to arrange traffic monitoring this way. Everyone is videotaped 20 times a day on the highway anyway so that open road is not really the place for anonnmity.

    All of this makes me wonder, who is this really going to affect. Modern cell phones can be pinpointed via GPS anyway, and if the rumor that the microphone on a cellphone can be activated remotely is true (it seems quite credible) and talented amateurs can listen in to supposedly private conversations, then what privacy concerned person would use a cell phone?

    That would make a lot of us not concerned about our privacy, which would also explain why nobody encrypts their email, which I thought everyone would be doing by now.

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  • Bluegrass,  Music

    The Toadpickers rise again!

    Last night was the return of bluegrass to Jake’s Roadhouse. The usual crowd was there, only now it would appear that we are the house band. Halloween is when the bluegrass is going to be advertised again.

    Jake’s was pretty much the same. The usual crowd was there. We played on the stage which is something we seldom did before. The low ceiling has been removed which makes sound a bit more lost than it was before. Also the entire place is much cleaner and better lit.

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  • Bush,  Politics

    Interesting

    One of Bush’s more useful qualities (for him) is the ability to draw the right enemies. Just as Clinton excelled at drawing out the right wing crazies, Bush draws out the left, and internationally to boot. This CNN article, Mugabe, Chavez slam U.S. at U.N. event came as no surprise. While it is not necessarily a good thing to be hated by people recreating Stalin’s Ukrainian horror from the 30s, it certainly SEEMS like a good thing.

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